Cell-Phone Bills: Is Text-Messaging Too Expensive?

Texting isn't just a hot medium; it's also a big eyesore on many cell-phone bills. Even so, carriers fear that their fat texting profits will soon disappear. TIME reports.

... Wireless channels contribute about a tenth of a cent to a carrier's cost, that accounting charges might be twice that and that other costs basically round to zero because texting requires so little of a mobile network's infrastructure. Summing up, Srinivasan Keshav, a professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario and an expert on mobile computing found that a text message doesn't cost providers more than 0.3 cent.

You don't have to be a Wall Street analyst to do the quick math: with a carrier cost of one-third of a penny, when a customer pays 15 cents to send a message, 98% of that 15 cents is pure profit.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Text-message fees recommended for antitrust scrutiny

-- Lawmakers Question Increased Text Messaging Costs

emily | 10:03 AM | European/ZA/USA SMS pricing issues |
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